We are used to acts of bravery that sweep
down upon the scene like tornadoes. We are used
to humiliating defeats that are deserved paybacks.
We are used to the depiction of war in books and
film as a series of battles between soldiers in distinguishing
uniforms. Especially when dealing with
Hitler and the Holocaust, the enemies are now
obvious, the looming evil obvious, the unbelievable
consequences now the obvious result.

Into this violent world delves Kevin Haworth
in his subtle, lovely, and remarkable novel, The
Discontinuity of Small Things. Here is a story of
the Danish Resistance during World War II, a resistance
to the German Occupation that involved
almost no violence. Haworth follows the lives of
several individuals as they meander through their
everyday lives, the German occupation heightening
moments here and there until the random moments
accumulate into an act of startling courage
or startling cowardice, a transforming instant of
enlightenment or sorrow. A medical student tries
to live his small life, working at the hospital and
chasing nurses. A girl watches the parade of German
soldiers with her father. A fisherman longs to
stay put while his wife wishes to move to
Copenhagen. The lives of these non-intersecting
characters intersect with a greater force, the tide
of History. As they make their small choices, these
characters are carried along to a point where they
must make fateful life or death choices.

Kevin Haworth, in evocative, spare prose,
speaks of the extraordinary occasions that visit
average lives, and he reminds us that acts of courage
usually begin with people like us.

—Nancy Zafris, 2006 finalist judge

2006 Fiction Runner-Up

Kevin HaworthThe Discontinuity of Small Things

Kevin Haworth was born in Brooklyn in 1971. He attended Vassar College
in Poughkeepsie, NY, majoring in English and graduating with Honors in
1992. It was at Vassar that he began writing fiction, studying with novelist
Thomas Mallon, and was one of twelve Vassar students selected to write
a final thesis project focused on creative work.

After graduation, he moved to Israel to participate in Sherut La’am (Service
to the People), a year-long volunteer program. He studied Hebrew
and worked as an avocado farmer at a kibbutz in the north, then moved to
the Negev Desert where he worked in a community center.

In 1995 he received a teaching fellowship to Arizona State University, earning
an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing in 1997. While there, he taught fiction
workshops and published his first story, “The Story of Jonah and the Whale,”
which won the Permafrost Fiction Prize. During that time he also began
work on The Discontinuity of Small Things.

In 1997 he moved to Philadelphia, where his wife was attending rabbinical
school. His second published story, “The Promised Land,” won the David
Dornstein Prize for Young Jewish Writers in 1998. In 1999 and in 2001 he
was awarded month-long residencies to the Vermont Studio Center, where
he worked as a carpenter and wrote long sections of his novel.
In 2006, his novel The Discontinuity of Small Things was recognized as a
notable title in the Writers Notes Magazine Book Awards and was also
awarded the Samuel Goldberg & Sons Foundation Prize for Jewish Fiction
by Emerging Writers.

He now lives in Athens, Ohio, and teaches writing and literature at Ohio
University. He is married to Rabbi Danielle Leshaw